Vice Adm. Richard Brown, commander of the Naval Surface Force Pacific, has said that four reorganized littoral combat ships may be ready for deployment by 2019, Defense News reported Thursday.The planned deployments are part of the service’s LCS reorganization program, which the U.S. Navy initiated in 2016 to fix mechanical problems found on the Independence-class USS Montgomery and USS Gabrielle Giffords and Freedom-class USS Detroit and USS Little Rock ships.
The Navy also intended to address the concerns on reduced crew ownership of the ships, which was blamed for various accidents.
The Navy replaced the modular LCS program, wherein each LCS has a small crew and would switch between anti-surface, anti-submarine or mine warfare mission packages depending on the mission, with a blue-and-gold crewing model wherein mission packages are assigned semi-permanently.
Lockheed Martin heads the team working on the Freedom variant of the Navy’s LCS class and Austal USA leads the work on the Independence variant.
